The Bachmann deBachle

Centrisity has a nice roundup of opinion about the endorsement of Michelle Bachmann in the 6th District race.

I agree with his conclusion: Bachmann is the Minnesota GOP's Hillary Clinton, a polarizing figure who garners support and opposition in near-equal measures. By endorsing Bachmann over Krinkie and Knoblauch, the GOP has managed to turn a reliably Republican district into a contest.

And for what? it's not like Bachmann is worth going to the mat for. In fact, several conservative bloggers have already said that they're more worried about Bachmann than either of her likely Democratic opponents.

In a year when the GOP stands to lose control of one and maybe both houses of Congress, you'd think they'd make an effort to court the middle. I guess not.

Oh, well. It's hard to feel sympathy for them when they dig their own grave.

Knoblauch, Krinkie, Bachmann, politics, midtopia

Moussaoui asks to withdraw guilty plea

And so the circus tries to continue for at least one more round.

Just five days after a jury imposed a life sentence on him for concealing his knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Moussaoui told Federal Judge Leonie M. Brinkema that he claimed to be a member of the plot "even though I knew that was a complete fabrication."

Mr. Moussaoui told Judge Brinkema, in what appeared to be a futile motion to withdraw his plea, that he had not trusted the American legal system because he was not assigned a Muslim lawyer, and that his days in solitary confinement had provoked him to fight that system.

The jurors' decision to spare his life made him look at his situation anew, Mr. Moussaoui said. He said he would welcome a trial where he could show he was not part of the 9/11 plot "because I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial even with Americans as jurors."

He won't get it, unless he can provide convincing evidence that he in fact had nothing to do with the 9/11 plot. And we should be careful not to give him much more of a platform before the public eye. He had his trial, and lost; the appeals process should proceed as quietly as possible.

But we should not lose this opportunity to note to the world that, having experienced the U.S. justice system firsthand, convicted terrorist Zacharias Moussaoui now believes he can get a fair trial. Not only is it good PR; it will further undermine any claim he might have to "martyr" status.

Moussaoui, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Contraception: The new abortion

Researchers using federal data have found two interesting trends that chart the relationship between abortion and contraceptives.

Between 1994 and 2001:

1. The rate of unplanned pregnancies rose by 30 percent among poor women. The abortion rate also rose.

2. The rate of unplanned pregnancies fell 20 percent among affluent women. The abortion rate also fell.

Asked what was driving the trends, the authors noted that some state and federal reproductive health programs have been cut or made more restrictive in recent years. State and federal programs have increasingly focused on abstinence rather than contraception, and some analysts have argued that the shift is leading to less use of contraceptives and more unintended pregnancies.

(snip)

The authors said the growing disparities between richer and poorer women appeared to be the result of greater contraceptive use by the more affluent. The health statistics center, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported in 2004 that after decades of increasing contraceptive use, the trend stalled in the late 1990s and began to decline after that. The decline occurred almost entirely in poorer women.

Gee, imagine that. Reduced use of contraceptives leads to more abortions. Sounds like common sense, doesn't it? So why am I writing about it?

Because some people -- some relatively influential people -- disagree. Some Christian conservatives are starting to jump on the same bandwagon that Catholic groups have occupied for decades: life begins at fertilization, and anything that interferes with that is abortion. And they're willing to use laws and government regulations to force everybody to conform to their beliefs.

This weekend's New York Times Magazine had a cover story on the phenomenon. Some quotes:

"We see contraception and abortion as part of a mind-set that's worrisome in terms of respecting life. If you're trying to build a culture of life, then you have to start from the very beginning of life, from conception, and you have to include how we think and act with regard to sexuality and contraception." -- Edward R. Martin Jr., a lawyer for the public-interest firm Americans United for Life

(snip)

Dr. Joseph B. Stanford, who was appointed by President Bush in 2002 to the F.D.A.'s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee despite (or perhaps because of) his opposition to contraception, [wrote in] a 1999 essay: "Sexual union in marriage ought to be a complete giving of each spouse to the other, and when fertility (or potential fertility) is deliberately excluded from that giving I am convinced that something valuable is lost. A husband will sometimes begin to see his wife as an object of sexual pleasure who should always be available for gratification."

Here's what happened during the FDA's consideration of Plan B, the "morning after" pill.

After the agency's advisory committees voted in favor of over-the-counter status for Plan B at the end of 2003, and after it was further approved at every level of the agency's professional staff, standard procedure would have been for the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research arm of the F.D.A. to approve the application.

But one member of the F.D.A.'s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee had reservations: Dr. W. David Hager, a Christian conservative whom President Bush appointed to lead the panel in 2002. (After an outcry from women's groups, who were upset at Dr. Hager's writing that he used Jesus as a model for how he treated women in his gynecology practice, he was shifted from chairman of the panel to ordinary member.) Dr. Hager said he feared that if Plan B were freely available, it would increase sexual promiscuity among teenagers.

F.D.A. staff members presented research showing that these fears were ungrounded: large-scale studies showed no increase in sexual activity when Plan B was available to them, and both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Society for Adolescent Medicine endorsed the switch to over-the-counter status. Others argued that the concern was outside the agency's purview: that the F.D.A.'s mandate was specifically limited to safety and did not extend to matters like whether a product might lead to people having more sex.

Meanwhile a government report later found that Dr. Janet Woodcock, deputy commissioner for operations at the F.D.A., had also expressed a fear that making the drug available over the counter could lead to "extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an 'urban legend' status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B."

In May 2004, the F.D.A. rejected the finding of its scientific committees and denied the application, citing some of the reasons that Dr. Hager had expressed.

The drug's manufacturer reapplied two months later, this time for permission to sell it over the counter to women ages 16 and up, seemingly dealing with the issue of youth. Then, last August, Crawford made his announcement that the F.D.A. would delay its decision, a delay that could be indefinite.

Note the outsized influence of anti-contraceptive advisors at the FDA, and the FDA's reaction when the stated concern (use by adolescents) was addressed.

Why the opposition to Plan B? The stated reason is that it is an abortifacent, on the theory that at least occasionally it prevents the implantation of a fertilized egg.

But since Plan B is simply a higher dosage of regular birth-control hormones, the same arguments could be applied to the Pill. And IUDs. (And breastfeeding, BTW). And never mind that many of these same groups also oppose other forms of contraception, like condoms and diaphragms. Or that this represents a moving of the goalposts in the abortion debate.

The story sums up the underlying issue nicely:

The conservative [viewpoint is] that giving even more government backing to emergency contraception and other escape hatches from unwanted pregnancy will lead to a new wave of sexual promiscuity. An editorial in the conservative magazine Human Events characterized the effect of such legislation as "enabling more low-income women to have consequence-free sex."

And that is relevant how?

Does effective contraception reduce the risk of pregnancy, and thus reduce a barrier to sex? Undoubtedly. But that's a personal choice, and nobody else's business. It's something to be addressed by education and persuasion, not legislation and regulation.

I have no problem with people believing that contraception is against their beliefs. I have no problem with people trying to persuade others to feel the same. But I have a big problem with using the regulatory process to try to impose those beliefs on others. If you don't want to use contraceptives, don't; but don't try to get them legally restricted so that others can't use them, either.

I also find this argument unpersuasive:

Rector says that abstinence programs can't properly be combined with other elements in a comprehensive sex education program because the message is lost when a teacher says: "One option you might want to consider is abstaining. Now let's talk about diaphragms."

If you can't make the case for abstinence compelling in context, then it's a weak argument. It's almost a "victimology" response to argue that information on contraception must be muzzled in order for abstinence education to be effective.

True, it may be a matter of emphasis. But I doubt most sex ed classes throw abstinence away as a one-liner. And if they do, the answer is to provide curricular guidelines. Spend time emphasizing the advantages of abstinence. Discuss the risks and downsides, from pregnancy to STD to social and mental impacts. Then say "If despite all that you're going to have sex, here's what you can do to reduce but not eliminate some of the risks."

And never mind that study after study has found abstinence-only programs to be ineffective.

The good news is that the people cited in this article still represent a minority view. The article mentions that 98% of sexually-active women have used some form of birth control. It also notes this, about sex ed:

A poll released in 2004 by National Public Radio, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government found, for example, that 95 percent of parents think that schools should encourage teenagers to wait until they are older to have sex, and also that 94 percent think that kids should learn about birth control in school.

Exactly as I outlined above.

And a final statistical note:

Countries in which abortion is legal and contraception is widely available tend to rank among the lowest in rate of abortion, while those that outlaw abortion — notably in Central and South America and Africa — have rates that are among the highest. According to Stanley K. Henshaw of the Guttmacher Institute, recent drops in abortion rates in Eastern Europe are due to improved access to contraceptives. The U.S. falls somewhere in the middle in rate of abortion: at 21 per 1,000 women of reproductive age, it is roughly on par with Nigeria (25), much better than Peru (56) but far worse than the Netherlands (9).

I repeat: feel free to be personally against contraceptive use. But don't use the levers of government to force everyone else to conform to your beliefs.

birth+control, Plan B, abortion, contraception, politics, midtopia

Bush: Guantanamo should close

Speaking on German television, President Bush said he wants to close the Gitmo detention facility.

"Obviously, the Guantanamo issue is a sensitive issue for people," Bush told ARD German television. "I very much would like to end Guantanamo; I very much would like to get people to a court.

"And we're waiting for our Supreme Court to give us a decision as to whether the people need to have a fair trial in a civilian court or in a military court," he said in a transcript released Sunday.

This is remarkable for two reasons: Bush essentially admitting that Gitmo is an embarassment, and his apparent willingness to given detainees civilian trials if the Supreme Court disallows military tribunals -- as it should and hopefully will do.

It would be easy to dismiss this as rearguard damage control, given that the question is in the Supreme Court's hands now. Cynics might point out that Bush was free, any time in the last four years, to charge detainees in civilian court. Instead he set up the tribunals and kept people detained without charge or trial while he fought the tribunal concept all the way to the top.

You might be right. But what you also have is the administration admitting, however obliquely, a mistake. And you have Bush signaling that he will not stonewall the situation if the Supreme Court ruling goes against him. And you have, for the first time, the prospect that detainees will get their day in court sooner rather than later.

But most importantly I think there's now a sense that we have learned our lesson, and Gitmo will go down in history as a terrible idea, not to be readily repeated again.

Bush, terrorism, Guantanamo, Gitmo, politics, midtopia

Innocent man executed in Texas

Just came across this New York Times report from a couple of days ago:

Faulty evidence masquerading as science sent two men to death row for arson in Texas and led to the execution of one of them, a panel of private fire investigators concluded in a report released Tuesday in Austin.

The report, prepared for the Innocence Project, a legal clinic dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions, was presented to a new state panel, the Texas Forensic Science Commission, created by the Legislature last year to oversee the integrity of crime laboratories.

Barry C. Scheck, a co-director of the Innocence Project, said the report offered "important evidence of serious scientific negligence or misconduct in the investigations, reports and testimony of Texas state fire marshals" and called into question not just the two cases but also many others based on similar arson analyses.

The second defendant, by the way, was exonerated and pardoned after 17 years in prison, and awarded $430,000.

The strongest practical criticism of the death penalty -- that it's it's far too likely that an innocent will be executed -- usually draws the response of "name one innocent person who has been executed."

It's a cheap retort, because once someone is dead the investigation ends. Private individuals can keep trying to clear a dead person's name, but such quests are usually quixotic: lack of interest, lack of access and lack of professional investigators end up foiling the effort.

Now, thanks to very unusual circumstances, we have an example of a dead innocent. There's no reason to think they're the only one, but in any case that's one too many.

We need to ditch the death penalty except for extreme and overwhelmingly proven cases. And we need to do it now.

arson, death penalty, politics, midtopia

Judge calls wiretapping argument "gobbledygook"

An appeals court panel has sharply criticized the Bush administration's new rules making it easier to eavesdrop on Internet phone calls.

The skepticism expressed so openly toward the government's case during a hearing in U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia emboldened a broad group of civil liberties and education groups who argued that the U.S. improperly applied telephone-era rules to a new generation of Internet services.

"Your argument makes no sense," U.S. Circuit Judge Harry T. Edwards told the lawyer for the Federal Communications Commission, Jacob Lewis. "When you go back to the office, have a big chuckle. I'm not missing this. This is ridiculous."

At another point in the hearing, Judge Edwards told the FCC's lawyer his arguments were "gobbledygook" and "nonsense." The court's decision was expected within several months.

Yowch.

The question at hand is whether Internet Service Providers are "information services", which are explicitly exempted from a 1994 law requiring that telephone service providers ensure their equipment can accomodate police wiretaps. That's what allows monitoring of e-mail conversations and instant messaging, for example.

On the other hand, the judge seemed to agree that the law covers "voice over Internet protocol", or VOIP, which uses Internet connections but functions just like a traditional phone.

This is not a big thing, especially since Congress could easily revise the law to more precisely spell out what they wish to allow. But it's good to see the judicial system keeping an eye out for civil liberties.

politics, Internet, eavesdropping, wiretaps, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Porter Goss resigns

CIA director Porter Goss has resigned.

No reason was given. Goss has been mentioned as being somehow involved in Hookergate with former Rep. Randy Cunningham, but that connection looks tenuous. So unless there's more there than has come out publicly, let's look for less prurient reasons for the resignation. Like, say, his ongoing alienation of much of the senior staff at CIA, which have been resigning in droves. Or his reduced stature thanks to the ascension of John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence. That raises other questions: Did Negroponte push him out?

More as it develops.

Update: The Washington Post's take.

Update 2: Another good question is what this means for the CIA's intelligence-gathering efforts. It's not a good sign that there remains so much turmoil at the agency 5 years after 9/11; It's still caught up in internal problems when we really want it to be focusing its efforts outward. Reform takes time, and will be distracting. The question is, were Goss' reforms the right ones? If so, will they be carried forward by his successor? Or will his tenure turn out to have been a year of spinning wheels that cost us momentum as well as a number of senior operatives?

CIA, Goss, politics, midtopia

"Beyond reason"

The planned 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero in New York City is expected to cost -- are you ready? -- nearly $1 billion.

I'm not making this up.

Rebuilding officials concede that the new price tag is breathtaking — "beyond reason" in the words of one member of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation board — and it is sure to set off another battle over development at the 16-acre site, with calls to cut costs, scale back the design or even start over.

This is just the memorial, not the commercial development going up at the site. And that's not counting an $80 million visitors' center being built by the state.

The new estimate, $972 million, would make this the most expensive memorial ever built in the United States.... It is likely to draw unfavorable comparisons to the $182 million National World War II Memorial in Washington, which opened in 2004; the $29 million Oklahoma City National Memorial, which opened in 2000; or the $7 million Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, which opened in 1982.

Much of the problem is that the memorial would be underground, necessitating lots of expensive steel, concrete and labor. But that's hardly an excuse. Some of these estimates are dramatically higher than they were just a few months ago.

The report estimates the cost of just the memorial and its related museum at $672 million, up 36 percent from $494 million only four months ago. In addition, the latest projections include $71.5 million for an underground cooling plant, up from $41.5 million four months ago.

How does a cooling plant's cost go up 72 percent in just four months, except through really bad planning?

If the memorial foundation were able to raise that kind of money privately, then no problem. I'd still think it reflected seriously misplaced priorities, but it's private money. However, in perhaps a sign of good sense among the American public, the foundation has collected just $130 million so far.

New York's mayor and the governors of both New York and New Jersey have said the memorial shouldn't cost more than $500 million. That's still a bit mind-boggling, but as an upper limit it seems quite reasonable.

We need a memorial, and it should be tasteful, impressive and thought-provoking, as befits such a history-changing event. But turning its construction into an enormously expensive boondoggle would not do justice to the memories of the victims. Set a reasonable price tag, and then design the best memorial that fits the budget.

New York, WTC, memorial, Ground Zero, politics, midtopia

Catch a criminal, catch some flak

In the "no good deed goes unpunished" category, the bartender that turned in escaped rapist Michael Benson has been suspended from her job.

Some people have even called her "a snitch," said Nina, who asked that her last name not be published for safety reasons.... Nina said that on Wednesday she was told not to come back to her job of nearly 14 years at Gates Bar-B-Q for a while.

"I don't know why. They told me if I need anything to call them," she said.

Excuse me? "Snitch?" For turning in a convicted rapist? Yeep.

The suspension is more murky. The "call us if you need anything" aspect suggests the suspension is merely for safety reasons, or to make the publicity go away more quickly, rather than some underlying disapproval of her actions. But what a hamhanded way to do it. I hope the suspension is with pay, including what her tips would have been.

America's Most Wanted, Michael Benson, crime, midtopia

Bribery investigation closes in on La. Democrat

Following on the heels of the Mollohan case, here's another demonstration that Republicans don't have a corner on the corruption market:

A while back, Brent Pfeffer, an aide to Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., pleaded guilty to demanding bribes and implicated his boss.

A couple of days ago, a contractor pleaded guilty to paying Jefferson more than $400,000.

Vernon Jackson, 53, chief executive of the Louisville, Ky.-based telecommunications firm iGate Inc., admitted to bribery of a public official and conspiracy to bribe a public official during a plea hearing in US District Court.

Court records make clear that the congressman whom Jackson admits bribing is Jefferson, who represents New Orleans in the House. ... Prosecutor Mark Lytle said Jackson paid $367,500 in checks and wire transfers over a four-year period to a company controlled by the congressman's wife in exchange for help promoting iGate technology in Africa. Jackson also gave the company a 24 percent stake in iGate and paid for $80,000 in travel expenses on the congressman's trips to Africa to promote iGate, which uses technology to transmit data over traditional telephone lines.

Jefferson denies wrongdoing. But prosecutors say he is the target of the investigation. And two solid convictions of other players, both of whom implicate Jefferson, spell bad news for the Congressman.

Congress, bribery, corruption, Jefferson, politics, midtopia

Making policy on the fly

Didn't get to this yesterday:

One might wonder why Senate Republicans haven't yet formally killed their gas tax proposal, given the near-unanimous condemnation it's receiving.

Besieged with complaints about political pandering, GOP lawmakers now say the rebate idea is a non-starter. As Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) explained yesterday, "When my own daughter harasses me, you know you're in trouble."

So declare it dead already, and let's move on.

The reason they haven't might be that lawmakers haven't come up with something equally pandering to replace it. But the real problem, which is the linked article's main point, is that legislators were making this stuff up on the fly.

The response so far has been profiles in panic. Some conservatives dropped their philosophical opposition to tax hikes and business regulations and began complaining loudly about oil companies and the auto industry. ... A few days earlier, Bush backed diverting crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, an idea he dismissed less than two years earlier as a political stunt. ... Republican lawmakers likewise have responded with a mishmash of solutions -- some barely vetted, others with little chance of becoming law.

The Democrats get points for at least being consistent, even though their ideas are no more effective or on point than the GOP's.

Memo to all of our elected leaders: Calm down.

The thing about high gas prices is that it is not a crisis. It is (hopefully) a new chronic condition. So hasty, temporary measures to deal with it are ill-conceived at best.

Forget the attempt at short-term, short-sighted fixes. You can't do much anyway. Instead, take a deep breath and do the things that need to be done to assure our long-term energy security -- which means taking steps to reduce our oil dependence.

Do a good job at that -- show that you are sober, smart and willing to take risks to do what must be done -- and maybe your prospects in November will improve.

gas tax, gas prices, oil, energy, politics, midtopia

San Diego ordered to take down giant cross

A cross that has stood atop a city-owned mountaintop in San Diego for decades may have to come down after a 17-year legal battle.

A federal judge moved to end a 17-year legal saga yesterday by ordering the city of San Diego to remove the Mount Soledad cross from city property within 90 days or be fined $5,000 a day.

“It is now time, and perhaps long overdue, for this Court to enforce its initial permanent injunction forbidding the presence of the Mount Soledad Cross on City property,” U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson Jr. said.

The 29-foot cross was dedicated in 1954 at the site of a Korean War memorial. A resident sued in 1989 to have it removed. Several attempts to transfer the land under the cross to private groups have been disallowed. So now the cross will likely be moved to nearby private land.

The mayor of San Diego has indicated a willingness to continue fighting the case, but the city is strapped for cash and can ill-afford the fines.

This has become a cause celebre for conservative groups, in part because the original plaintiff was an atheist, and he received assistance from the ACLU. But the legal reasoning seems very clear:

In his ruling, Thompson said he has spent years hearing arguments over the cross, as have other courts.

“Consistently, every court that has addressed the issue has ruled that the presence of the Latin cross on Mount Soledad, land which is owned by the city of San Diego . . . violates Article I Section 4 of the California Constitution,” he said in his order.

I'm not the sort to get all offended by a giant cross overlooking a city -- I actually think the big statue of Jesus that overlooks Rio de Janeiro is pretty cool. But this is about the law, not my personal lack of offense. And the law makes sense. It is wrong for our government to have a cross represent all Korean War vets, as if they were all Christian or even believers. And it is wrong to use city property to promote one religion above all others.

One could argue that the cross has historic significance. After all, we wouldn't move the cross if it was hundreds of years old. Southwestern states operate old Spanish missions as historic sites, for example, and the religious symbols are part of the presentation.

But presenting religion in a historic context is clearly distinct from promoting it. More to the point, the San Diego cross has scant historic value, being less than 60 years old. That is not enough to overcome the importance of the government being seen as neutral on belief -- and nonbelief.

The solution is simple, and has already been planned: move the cross to nearby public land. The cross is preserved and it is still highly visible. But you will no longer have one religion using the levers of governmental power to promote itself.

ACLU, San Diego, religion, politics, midtopia

A general's inside take on Iraq

Fred Kaplan over at Slate reports on a memo that retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey wrote about the situation and prognosis in Iraq. McCaffrey supports the war and now teaches at West Point.

The assessment won't surprise anyone who has been paying attention. Our troops are doing a professional job, and the Iraqi army is coming along. But the security situation is worsening, the Iraqi police and army units are underequipped, underfunded and unable to fight on their own and reconstruction aid is dwindling to nothing.

He estimates it will take 10 years and about $100 billion in economic aid alone to achieve what we set out to achieve in Iraq. Add another $700 billion or so to that total for military operations, if you look at our current rate of spending.

It's an excellent and balanced piece, and points up what I've said for a long time: had the benefits, perils and costs of invading Iraq been fairly and openly debated, the American public would never have signed on. Whatever you may think about the morality of invading -- and I'm generally okay with the idea of taking out bad guys -- I'm pretty sure we could have found better ways to spend $2 trillion.

Go give it a look.

Iraq, McCaffrey, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Specter to hold hearings on Bush conduct

Sen. Arlen Specter said Wednesday that he would hold hearings on the Boston Globe report that Bush has simply ignored 750 laws he disagrees with.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, accusing the White House of a "very blatant encroachment" on congressional authority, said yesterday he will hold an oversight hearing into President Bush's assertion that he has the power to bypass more than 750 laws enacted over the past five years.

"There is some need for some oversight by Congress to assert its authority here," Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said in an interview. "What's the point of having a statute if . . . the president can cherry-pick what he likes and what he doesn't like?"

Specter said he plans to hold the hearing in June. He said he intends to call administration officials to explain and defend the president's claims of authority, as well to invite constitutional scholars to testify on whether Bush has overstepped the boundaries of his power.

Good. That's a first step. Bush has dared Congress to rein him in; if Congress has any concern at all for its relevance as an institution, they should call that dare.

Specter makes the same point:

Specter said that challenging Bush's contention that he can ignore laws written by Congress should be a matter of institutional pride for lawmakers. He also connected Bush's defiance of laws to several Supreme Court decisions in which the justices ruled that Congress had not done enough research to justify a law.

"We're undergoing a tsunami here with the flood coming from the executive branch on one side and the judicial branch on the other," Specter said. "There may as well soon not be a Congress. . . . And I think that most members don't understand what's happening."

The founders envisioned three branches of government, each jealously guarding their prerogatives, as a way to prevent any one organization from dominating the country. The party system has distorted that; Congressional Republicans now have first loyalty to the president as the leader of the party, as Congressional Dems did under Clinton. Bush has played that for everything it's worth; perhaps now Congress will awaken and push back, once again taking up the Constitutional responsibility that the founders envisioned for it.

checks and balances, Specter, Bush, politics, midtopia

"20th hijacker" gets life

Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life in prison today, the jury still split after seven days of deliberation.

Edward Adams, a court spokesman, announced the verdict outside the courthouse and said the 12 jurors "were not unanimous" in favor of a death sentence for Moussaoui, meaning that he automatically gets a life sentence without possibility of parole. He said the verdict does not indicate how many jurors voted for a death sentence and how many opted to keep the defendant in prison.

Works for me. The guy is a nutter, IMO. Not in the legally defensible sense of not knowing right from wrong, but certainly in the colloquial sense of not being rational. He was clearly guilty, so a death sentence would have been defensible. But life in prison serves justice. And as I'll argue below, it has other benefits, too.

"America, you lost. I won!" Moussaoui yelled as he was escorted from the U.S. District courtroom in Alexandria after the verdict was read. He clapped his hands as he left.

He's mistaken. We won. Anyone can execute a widely hated criminal. Only a free and democratic country gives that criminal a fair trial and then spares his life. The fact that he cannot understand that speaks volumes about the gulf between his worldview and ours.

But speaking of nutters:
"A travesty of justice"
"I hope this ends our little experiment in judicial trials"
"Imbecilic asswipes."

And then there's the illogical:
"Moussaoui just made a chump out of the United States"

These folks don't understand the difference between strength and savagery. All execution takes is fear or vengeance. But it took confidence and strength to let him live. Today we made clear that we do not fear him or his ilk, which is a powerful message to send to a watching world.

Moussaoui, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Hamas blames U.S. for lack of funds

The Palestinian prime minister is blaming the U.S. for its money troubles, saying we're blocking various attempts to get money into Palestine to pay employees.

Haniyeh appealed to Arab leaders to face up to the Americans "to stop the siege imposed on the Palestinian people and to stop the political blackmail against the government." He also called on Palestinian bankers to "show the necessary patriotism."

Uh, no. The real problem here is that Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, and attempted to justify suicide bomb attacks against civilians as recently as last month. They're free to do that, but such positions carry consequences. And those consequences can be severe when you're almost entirely dependent on Western aid for your economy. But it's silly to think you can bite the hand that feeds you and expect the feeding to continue.

Hamas has two choices: assume a more responsible stance on Israel, or get used to being strapped for cash. Palestinian voters have their own choices: to pressure Hamas to change, to support Hamas and accept the attendant economic problems, or vote them out.

My sympathy is with the voters, because the main alternative -- Fatah -- has failed them repeatedly over the years and is notoriously corrupt. We should show good faith by pressuring Fatah to reform, as hard as we've pressed Hamas to recognize Israel. That way the Palestinians would have at least one reasonable choice instead of two bad ones.

Palestine, Fatah, Hamas, politics, midtopia

Lip service

Given my previous post about Bush ignoring laws, this would seem to qualify as unintentional comedy.

My question for Bush would be: how do you envision the "balance of powers" operating when you arrogate for yourself the right to decide whether a law is constitutional or not and when you shroud your actions in secrecy -- even, at times, from Congress?

Bush, politics, midtopia

New taxes dead, pander still on life support

Senate Republicans can act quickly when necessary -- such as when their business allies object to proposed new taxes.

Senate Republicans on Monday hurriedly abandoned a broad tax proposal opposed by the oil industry and business leaders, another sign of their struggle to come up with an acceptable political and legislative answer to high gasoline prices.

Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, said he had decided to jettison the provision, which would have generated billions of dollars by changing the way businesses treat inventories for tax purposes. Instead, he said the Senate Finance Committee would hold hearings on the plan "later this year, so the pluses and minuses of the provision can become well known."

I actually think the proposal should never have been made in the first place: oil company profits are the least of my worries. But it shows once again how clueless Frist is.

Meanwhile, the $100 rebate plan has not yet had its plug pulled. But sweet merciful death can't be far away, especially because income from the tax provision is supposed to pay for the rebate.

The centerpiece of the leadership proposal, a $100 rebate check to compensate taxpayers for higher gasoline prices, continued to receive a rough reception. Members of the public have telephoned and written to ridicule the idea, and even Republican lawmakers are finding fault.

"Political anxiety in an election year is to blame for a lot of the bad bills Congress passes," said Representative Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, who on Monday called the rebate a "knee-jerk populist idea" that voters would see through.

The rest of the bill has some other elements:

The measure includes new protections against price gouging, incentives to expand domestic oil refinery capacity, support for new energy initiatives and tax incentives for buying hybrid vehicles.

Ditch the price-gouging protections, because I have yet to see evidence of it being a widespread problem and anyway I want gas to be more expensive. Expanding refining capacity is fine, because refining is the main bottleneck in our energy supply line. But tax incentives are less important than overcoming political and environmental opposition to their construction.

Support for new energy initiatives is fine as long as it's different sources of energy, not just drilling in ANWR and other such measures that will have no short-term effect and in the long-term will just provide an excuse to continue our oil dependence -- all while incurring lasting environmental damage.

Tax incentives for hybrids is nice, but misses the point. Target the tax incentive at fuel efficiency, not one particular type of motor. I don't care if the car is a hybrid design or not; all I care about is that it gets 50 miles to the gallon.

I'll also note, yet again, that all of these tax incentives and funding options and so on and so forth would be totally unnecessary if we do one thing: keep the price of gas high. Do that, and people will pursue the other options on their own, out of naked self-interest.

oil, Frist, energy, gas prices, politics, midtopia

Police intelligence units stage comeback

In conjunction with yesterday's report that Bush is simply ignoring laws he doesn't like, this all starts to sound like variations on a theme. From U.S. News & World Report:

Since 9/11, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have poured over a half-billion dollars into building up local and state police intelligence operations. The funding has helped create more than 100 police intelligence units reaching into nearly every state.

To qualify for federal homeland security grants, states were told to assemble lists of "potential threat elements"--individuals or groups suspected of possible terrorist activity. In response, state authorities have come up with thousands of loosely defined targets, ranging from genuine terrorists to biker gangs and environmentalists.

Guidelines for protecting privacy and civil liberties have lagged far behind the federal money. After four years of doling out homeland security grants to police departments, federal officials released guidelines for the conduct of local intelligence operations only last year; the standards are voluntary and are being implemented slowly.

I'm okay with the police being on the lookout for terror suspects. But basic standards of evidence and conduct need to be followed, or any such system is guaranteed to be abused.

U.S. News has a sidebar on why pervasive police surveillance is troublesome.

Starting in the 1970s, lawsuits and grand jury investigations uncovered all kinds of abuse by these units: illegal spying, burglaries, beatings, unwarranted raids, the spreading of disinformation. Americans engaged in constitutionally protected free speech were routinely photographed, wiretapped, and harassed--all in the name of national security. In Memphis, the police department spied on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and gathered data on political activists' bank accounts, phone records, and close associates. In New Haven, Conn., police wiretapped over a thousand people. In Philadelphia, then police chief Frank Rizzo boasted of holding files on 18,000 people. The list of "subversives" grew to include the League of Woman Voters, civil rights groups, religious figures, and politicians running for office.

If you want even more history and examples of how police powers can be abused, I heartily recommend Geoffrey Stone's book "Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime." It traces the history of free speech law from the founding of the Republic.

The FBI did all sorts of heinous things under its COINTELPRO initiative, including arranging for antiwar activists to be fired, sabotaging the campaigns of antiwar candidates, mailing anonymous letters to their spouses suggesting the activists were having affairs, causing activists to be evicted, disabling their cars, intercepting their mail, planting derogatory information about them in the press.... the list goes on.

Then there's the blurry line between infiltration and agitation:

1. A state undercover agent served as co-chair of the Students for a Democratic Society chapter in Columbia, S.C.

2. Another became chairman of the SDS chapter at the University of Texas.

3. Agents infiltrating the SDS chapter at Northwestern led a sit-in in 1968 and then actively participated in a 1969 Weatherman action.

4. Other Chicago undercover operatives provided explosives to the Weathermen, encouraged them to shoot the police, and led an assault upon a uniformed police sergeant during a demonstration, which was widely publicized as "proving the violence" of the New Left.

Supporters of this resurgence in police activity say that the police have learned the lessons of history and will be more careful this time. I'm not reassured, especially given the examples in the U.S. News story.

In February 2006 near Washington, D.C., two Montgomery County, Md., homeland security agents walked into a suburban Bethesda library and forcefully warned patrons that viewing Internet pornography was illegal. (It is not.)... Similarly, in 2004, two plainclothes Contra Costa County sheriff's deputies monitored a protest by striking Safeway workers in nearby San Francisco, identifying themselves to union leaders as homeland security agents.

Union leaders and Web surfers. Well, I suppose they could cause trouble. But how about this one, from here in Minnesota?

In Minnesota, the state-run Multiple Jurisdiction Network Organization ran into controversy after linking together nearly 200 law enforcement agencies and over 8 million records. State Rep. Mary Liz Holberg, a Republican who oversees privacy issues, found much to be alarmed about when a local hacker contacted her after breaking into the system. The hacker had yanked out files on Holberg herself, showing she was classified as a "suspect" based on a neighbor's old complaint about where she parked her car.

Scary on two counts: the absurdness of the classification system and the insecurity of the data.

Or how about the lead example in the story:

[In Atlanta], two agents were assigned to follow around the county executive. Their job: to determine whether he was being tailed--not by al Qaeda but by a district attorney investigator looking into alleged misspending. A year later, one of its plainclothes agents was seen photographing a handful of vegan activists handing out antimeat leaflets in front of a HoneyBaked Ham store. Police arrested two of the vegans and demanded that they turn over notes, on which they'd written the license-plate number of an undercover car,

DAs and vegan protesters. Not good.

The fight against Al Qaeda is morphing into an intimidation campaign against the same old "troublemakers". We've been down this road before; it will be shameful if we go down it again.

civil liberties, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Bush: I AM the law!

The Boston Globe has a piece that you would swear was satire. Except it's not.

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, "whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Now, on one level Bush is correct: he's as free to ignore laws as the next guy. But there are consequences to doing so. The President is generally not at risk for criminal prosecution, but Congress is free to impeach him.

In addition, his general attitude has been shared by many presidents -- none of whom, for instance, have ever recognized the authority of the War Powers Act even as they complied with it.

What sets Bush apart is, as always, his method and the sheer scope of his reach. His method is to simply ignore the law and hope nobody notices. And the scope is of truly historic proportions.

Far more than any predecessor, Bush has been aggressive about declaring his right to ignore vast swaths of laws -- many of which he says infringe on power he believes the Constitution assigns to him alone as the head of the executive branch or the commander in chief of the military.

Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush's theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts.

The Constitution requires the president to "faithfully execute" the laws. If he thinks they aren't Constitutional, there's a way to check that: take the case to the Supreme Court and get a ruling. Instead Bush imposes his own interpretation on the Constitution, which would appear to be unconstitutional and clearly unethical.

The story also gets into the effect of his "signing statements":

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation's sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files "signing statements" -- official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.

In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills -- sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill. He has appended such statements to more than one of every 10 bills he has signed.

"He agrees to a compromise with members of Congress, and all of them are there for a public bill-signing ceremony, but then he takes back those compromises -- and more often than not, without the Congress or the press or the public knowing what has happened," said Christopher Kelley, a Miami University of Ohio political science professor who studies executive power.

Another seemingly clear-cut example:

The Constitution grants Congress the power to create armies, to declare war, to make rules for captured enemies, and ''to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces." But, citing his role as commander in chief, Bush says he can ignore any act of Congress that seeks to regulate the military.

Bush is wrong. As Commander in Chief, Bush is solely responsible for the conduct of the war; you do not want 480 Congressmen playing general. But he is merely the executor of the will of the people as expressed by Congress; the rules he operates under and even the strategic direction are ultimately Congress's responsibility. His relationship to Congress in this regard is a bit like the relationship that the Joint Chiefs have with the President: they conduct the operations, but they do so at the President's direction.

Bush is pulling what amounts to a dare: he does what he likes, and if Congress doesn't like it they can either drag him before the Supreme Court or cut off funding for his activities. Congress is reluctant to take so explosive a step in most circumnstances, and is even less likely to do so with Republican majorities in both houses. And so Bush is able to run roughshod over everyone.

There's a lot more to the story, with many more examples. I recommend reading it all.

What does it say about Bush's personality that he will sign a bill, then quietly add a statement saying he doesn't have to obey it? Are those the actions of an ethical, brave, stand-up, straight-talking leader? Not even close. To me they are more reminiscent of the little boy who breaks the rules and hopes he won't get caught.

What does it say about the balance of powers when Bush plainly states he will ignore any law he doesn't like, even laws he signed? It's a rather breathtaking act of political brinksmanship, daring Congress to impeach him or fold. Each individual dare might not be worth a Congressional challenge. But it sure seems worth it in the aggregate.

As long as there is a Republican Congress, any such challenge will be slow, halting and weak. It's yet one more reason to hope for a change of control in November: so that Congress can once again fulfill it's mandated role as a check and balance on the power of the executive branch.

Constitution, Bush, politics, midtopia